Speed up your windows xp computer Video #7

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Windows Xp Tune up Video #7

“Registry Optimization”

Here in our last video, we are going to look at a few more things.

The first thing we want to check is that or hard drives are operating optimally with DMA Mode (Direct Memory Access).

We are going to go the Start menu and right click on My Computer and select Properties. On the Hardware tab, select Device Manger. When that opens up, we are going to look for is IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers and click on the + to expand it. What we are mainly concerned with are the Primary IDE Channel and the Secondary IDE Channel. In your system, you will probably see only one of each of these entries.

We are going to right click on Primary IDE Channel, select Properties and click on the Advance tab. Here we want to make sure under Device 0, the Transfer Mode is set to DMA if available. We also want to make sure under Device 1, Transfer Mode is set to DMA if available and select OK. Also make sure that the Secondary IDE Channel Device 0 and Device 1 is also set to DMA if available. You may be asked, to restart you computer if you made any changes when performing each of these steps. Go ahead and restart between each task. If you did not make any changes and did not have to restart, we can close out of everything and go back to your desktop.

Another way to do a lot of the Maintenance that we did in the previous tutorials as far as cleaning out temporary internet files is to use the System Cleanup Utility. To access, go to the Start menu, open My Computer and right click on the C: drive. On the General tab select Disk Cleanup and it will start cleaning.

If you do a lot of searching on the internet, or work with installing programs, or do a lot of work with any of the Office products or Word, they can cause a lot of temporary files to be stored on your computer. I would recommend you do this at least once or twice a month.

Once the cleanup scan is completed, you can see the different files that will be deleted, like Downloaded Programs files, Temporary Internet files, Office set up files, it will clean the Recycle Bin, and delete Temporary files. Make sure there is a check mark next to the files you want to delete. It is not recommended that you use Compress old files, when you compress files it takes your computer longer to access the files, so if is selected, deselect it. Go ahead and click OK to start the Cleanup, when asked are you sure, select Yes.

Once Cleanup is done, click on the Tools tab, and under Defragmentation click on Defragment now. You will want to make sure your C: drive is highlighted if you have more then one drive. Select Analyze for a short report and this will tell you rather or not you need to defragment. It is recommend that you defragment every 30 days even if it says you do not need to. Select Defragmet to start the process. This can take a long time to complete, sometimes an hour or more, depending on the size of your hard drive and the speed of your computer. Once defragmention has completed, you can close out of all the windows and return to your desktop.

There is a program that can aide you with many of the process we have been doing in these tutorials. We are going to review this program and run a couple of the utilities having to do with registry cleanup.

We are going to go to open up Internet Explorer and in the address bar type in, www.pcpowersuite.com and select Go or hit enter. Select Download FREE Trial and on the next page select Download FREE Trial again, choose Save and select you Save In Location, (Desktop is the default) and click Save. Once download is complete, close Internet Explorer.

Double click the PC Power Suite installer Icon on your desktop to start the installation process. Select Run on the Security Warning page. When the Set up Wizard will starts, select Next. Read and agree to the license agreement and click Next. You can choose the default location to save to or Browse to save it to another location and click Next. If you already have this program you will get a message stating that the file already exists and do you want to install to that folder anyway. Select Yes then Next. On this page you will need to put a check mark in the box if you want it to put an icon on your desktop, and click Next. This next page is a little installation summary. It gives you information like the Destination Folder, the Start Menu Folder and Additional Task. We are going to select Install. Put a check mark to Launch PC Power Suite, and click Finished.

When the PC Power Suite comes up, under Program Options are the categories of different types of utilities you can use. We are going to select System Cleaner. System Cleaner has a System and Disk Cleaner, a Registry Cleaner and Fixer, and a Startup Cleaner. Down at the bottom you will see that they have three different versions for purchase. You get the Basic version with the free download. The Advance and Pro version are for more detail settings.

Under the System Optimizer category, we are going to select the Registry Defragger and Optimizer utility. The screen will notify you of what actually occurs and that it is recommended to do this once a month, click on Next to continue. You will be notified that PC Power Suite will need exclusive access to the system registry, and some things may pause while you are performing this utility, select Start.

You will need to Restart your computer. The reason for the restart is the Registry is only read upon startup. You will get a little report telling you, total keys compacted, total size of all keys, and total size after compaction.

In the Pro version of PC Registry Cleaner, you will have access to all the files. It also has a Registry Cleaner Fixer, and a Startup Cleaner. Under the System Optimizer, there is a Memory Optimizer, the utility we just used, and a Windows Optimizer.

In the Windows Optimizer, you will see many of the options that we have previously done, such as Windows appearance. You can even effect Internet Network options in here. If we open these, you can see different items you can enable.

This program is pretty detailed, and a lot of the features most people will not use. There is a Help file in here that will tell you what each feature does. Mainly what I recommend for system users is the Basic or the Advance version. If you are weary of making system changes I would not recommend the Pro version.

There is an option under System Files Backup and Restore, where you can make different backups before you make any system changes. You can also use this option to restore to a previous backup. When you use the Registry Cleaner and Fixer in the Advance version, it will ask you to make a back up of the registry before it begins cleaning.

Under the Organizers feature you have, an Appointment Planner, Sticky Pad, and a Media Files Organizer

Under Safe Execution there is Safe Uninstaller that will help you uninstall programs safely like we did previously. You can also block programs from running if you are not sure what a program is, and are worried they may be malware. You can also change your log on settings in here.

The Internet and Email Section has an Add and Pop-up Blocker, and an Advanced Mailer, and Email Notification.

Privacy and Security has a Privacy Proctor that erases all traces of evidence, cookies and internet history. Secure Delete actually uses the Department of Defense (DOD) security protocol to totally erase files. You may or may not know that when a delete an item off of your computer, usually what Windows does in the first bit of information is change the 0 which means on, to a 1 which means off. Windows will no longer see that information but through various utilities can still be retrieved from your computer. The Spyware Detective is not a comprehensible spyware program but it will look for the basic forms of spyware.

You did receive a 30 day free trail when you installed it. Go ahead and have a look at it and see if you like it, you may want to buy it. It is a pretty handy program to have. A lot of the features, we have gone over previously and this is just a simpler way to perform those tasks.